Pretty Girls Make Graves
by Fidelis Haven
Summary: Millicent Bulstrode has been, and always will be, Pansy Parkinson's best friend. Pansy cries, Millicent angsts, Draco smirks and isn't even in it. (ff)


Disclaimer: Draco owns Pansy, Pansy owns Millicent, Millicent owns me. And JKR owns all.

Author's Note: Beta'd by the delightful Lilith Morgana, Queen of All Things Millicent. Oh yes.

Pretty Girls Make Graves

She's everything that Millicent Bulstrode is not.  
  
She's everything that Millicent Bulstrode is not and Millicent isn't sure if she wants to fuck her, or _be_ her. To fuck her, and watch the pale curve of her throat tighten, watch her skin flush, her body arc – or -be her. Slender, lighter, prettier, Pansy sparkles like a fucking diamond, one that cuts right into you if you look too long. Fuck her, be her – perhaps it's both, because on the rare occasions that Millicent lets herself indulge in her late night fantasies it's never _her_ making Pansy gasp, making her shudder. She's in someone else's body, slimmer, her hands more finely formed, her fingers less stubby. She is more graceful – more like Pansy. And when Millicent lets herself daydream, Pansy doesn't look at her in disgust, she doesn't turn away, but kisses back fiercely. And she touches Millicent as though she were touching herself.  
  
Millicent Bulstrode is a good Slytherin. She knows her own weaknesses. And that's the part that hurts most. Pansy _is_ her weakness. In more ways than one.  
  
She's your best friend, Millicent has told herself sternly, a thousand times, yet she still needs to repeat it. They've been inseparable since childhood. That first meeting at the Parkinson house, and she remembers it so vividly even now. Her mother leading a six year old Millie up the driveway, whispering urgently into her ear. _Be nice to Pansy. The Parkinsons are a very good family_. And Millicent nodding, trying to flatten the creases in her best red dress, bought specially. (Somehow she'd managed to crumple it on the way there. She never could take care of clothes properly.)  
  
There were two other girls already there, twins. In dresses that fitted them properly, perfectly laundered, matching plaits, all neat and tidy. Her mother's dream children. Both with identical expressions of disdain, an expression matched by Pansy at first as she greeted Millicent neutrally. She felt awkward, out of place, far too clumsy and she continued to feel that way until Parvati Patil criticized one of Pansy's dolls. Pansy ignored it magnificently, and kept on ignoring Parvati for the next half hour. She talked to Millicent instead, and _only_ Millicent. But it certainly wasn't an accident that led to Parvati's later misstep on the stairs, on the way to the dining room. Pansy, all wide eyed innocence, hoped that she hadn't broken anything – but Millicent caught the glint of malice in her eyes and couldn't stop herself grinning, in spite of the other twin's glare, in spite of Parvati's sniffled accusations.  
  
Yes, Pansy tapped right into her malicious streak, and vice versa, and from then on they were together always, never tiring of each other, became known as vindictive little bitches, the sting in Slytherin's tail, so to speak. Pansy's tongue might be quicker and sharper than hers, but Millicent relished it and played right up to her – thank Salazar Potter was in their year, providing such an easy target with his gang of exceptionally dull friends. At first she couldn't give a flying fuck about Potter, Granger, Weasley, any of them, but when she made Pansy laugh she felt really, truly happy. She feasted on the appreciation in her friend's eyes when she managed to say something particularly cutting.  
  
It would all be perfect, Millicent has thought many times, if it wasn't for Draco. Of course, Millicent's known about it for ages. Pansy's poorly disguised breathless crush, the look in Pansy's eyes when Draco snickered at something she's said – Millicent hates it. How could she _not_? She knows that look far too well. It's in her eyes, too, and she's not looking at Draco.  
  
She hadn't minded it quite so much when they were both twelve and all Pansy did was talk about how wonderful Draco was – the two girls were still joined at the hip, bitches together, forever. But then Millicent began to find herself alone more and more. Even when Pansy was around, Draco was always there as well. She'd sit on his knee in the common room, whispering into his ear, and Millicent, not wanting to stay, not wanting to move elsewhere, found something extremely interesting to study instead, like the pattern of the sofa. There's nothing like being the gooseberry to make you feel like the loneliest person on earth.  
  
It's Potter's fault as well, Millicent thinks bitterly, just for _existing_. All the fun's gone out of taking the piss now, because she knows Pansy's doing it to impress Draco. That's another thing that bothers her. Pansy wants to please him. Not her, not Millicent. Well, never Millicent, because Pansy never used to be the type to want to please anybody. People came to Pansy, not the other way round. And she didn't like seeing Pansy scowling at her reflection, trying to hold in her stomach to become that millimetre thinner. She didn't like seeing her pouring over Beauty Enhancement Charms that she got out of _Witch Weekly_ – Pansy never used to bother with that rag before Draco. She didn't need to. She doesn't now, not in Millicent's eyes anyway. She doesn't like this change. She wants the real Pansy back. Wants just the two of them, with everyone else on the outside looking in.  
  
Her obsession with him, Millicent thinks darkly, is unhealthy.  
  
(She's spent hours trying to imitate Pansy's handwriting, her walk, her laugh. The irony is not lost on her.)  
  
All this Millicent could have lived with. Not happily, but she could accept it. She _has_ accepted it. Pansy is still her best friend, still the person she talks to more than anyone else in the world. Despite Draco, Pansy has said countless times, Millicent is still the person with whom she was most herself. She has learned to smile politely when Pansy says things like that, wondering how Pansy never notices that her smile looked more like a grimace. She's learned to keep some things to herself, and she almost hates Draco for that. She and Pansy never used to have secrets. But she's been keeping this one from Pansy for far too long - neither of them are known for being tolerant, yet there are some things Millicent has learned that she _has_ to tolerate.  
  
All this Millicent could have lived with, then, and she has been living with it, right up to the point when the Dark Lord decides to make a somewhat less than glorious return. Right up to the point when Draco's father gets himself carted off to Azkaban, right up the point when Draco becomes more vicious, more possessed by the thought of _getting_ Potter once and for all. She knows it's entirely understandable, it _was_ his father in prison after all – but at this precise minute in time, Millicent Bulstrode can't seem to care. She's found Pansy curled up in a little used bathroom, at the beginning of the new term, eyes red and swollen. Without any tears left to cry, without caring _who_ saw her. That's what shocks Millicent the most – anybody could've walked in, it could've been _Granger_, for fuck's sake – that's what shocks and angers Millicent the most. That Draco could do that to Pansy. (And that she, Millicent, couldn't. She knows that's petty. She doesn't care.)  
  
"He's going," Pansy says, staring at her fingernails. "He's going somewhere – and I don't know if I can follow him."  
  
Millicent tries, she really does, for Pansy's sake. "I imagine this must be very difficult. For you as well."  
  
"He won't even talk about it," she says bleakly. "Not to me, not to anyone." And then her face crumples suddenly. "He's going to leave me, I can tell."  
  
Her last words are almost a wail, and Millicent can't stand that. She is there in a second, rocking Pansy back and forth in her arms. It is the closest they'd ever been, physically. And because Millicent is, after all, an unscrupulous little Slytherin, she can't help but hold Pansy a little more tightly, perhaps, than is strictly necessary. Thinking all the while, a constant litany: _fuck Draco, fuck all of them, we don't need any of them_. She doesn't even know who _they_ are, just that it makes her feel much better.  
  
"No," Pansy says, her voice half a sob, "we don't."  
  
She hasn't realised she'd spoken aloud, curses herself for it as she looks at Pansy's tearstained face.  
  
"It'll be just us, like the old days," Pansy says then, as if trying to convince herself of something, and she puts her hand up to Millicent's cheek. And then, oh _Salazar_, half a second's complete silence, complete stillness, and then nothing but the sensation of Pansy's lips upon hers, nothing but the taste of raspberry lipsalve, nothing but _Pansy_.  
  
She's hugged Pansy before, countless times, usually when Pansy's been drunk, busy dancing in the Slytherin common room and muttering dark imprecations about Draco into her ear. She's been driven to distraction by Pansy's litany of woes (he's done this, he hasn't done that, I'm sick of it, there's only so much of him that I can take, Milly, what the fuck am I supposed to do now?), she's been the comforting presence, the sympathetic ear so many times, she's held Pansy many times, has quietly, reasonably listened to all that her friend had to say. She's gently extricated herself from her friend's grasp when she thought the alcohol was speaking more forcefully than Pansy would, has removed Pansy's hand from her waist, her breast many times (and gods, she's regretted being so disgustingly loyal far too many times to mention) – but it's never been like this.  
  
In all her fantasies, Millicent has never, ever imagined that she would laugh. Or, if she has, it was the two of them tangled up together, in damp linen and laughter at a shared joke. She never thought that she would ruin this unexpected gift with shrill, uncontrollable giggles, and as Pansy pulls away from her, Millicent wonders if drowning herself in the toilet will condemn her to an afterlife with Moaning Myrtle.  
  
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she says helplessly, in between awful bursts of laughter that she just can't seem to stop. "It isn't you, I just can't help it –"  
  
Pansy looks at her oddly. "Milly, is this your _first_?"  
  
"No," Millicent says, trying to calm herself down a little. She's not quite lying. This isn't technically her first kiss. But it is the first one that's mattered. She hopes desperately that it won't matter to Pansy, that she won't stop or move away, then curses the fact that she is, quite simply, a fucking fool. A hysterical fool at that. "It's just – you're _Pansy_ – and we're in the _toilet_ – "  
  
Pansy smiles herself, then. "It is a bit ridiculous, I suppose. Still," she says, and Millicent's heart sinks as the other girl straightens up, "we're allowed a lapse in dignity from time to time, yes?"  
  
Millicent understands perfectly. She hates herself for what she knows she has to say next, and hates herself for what she doesn't say. Trying to sound casual; everything Pansy would like her to be and everything that she is not. Her voice is perhaps a little too high, a little too forced. "Even _we_ can't be brilliant all the time." And then, because she's weak, because she'd clutch at any straw, because it's what Pansy wants to hear, "I won't tell if you won't."  
  
It's almost worth it for the quick flash of gratitude in Pansy's eyes that disappears immediately. And almost unbearable. Millicent doesn't want _gratitude_. But she'll settle for it.  
  
"Our little secret," Pansy grins, then looks at her watch. "Oh fuck. Fuck fuck, fuckity fuck!"  
  
She doesn't need to check her own watch, knowing very well what time it is and where they're both – well, Pansy mainly – supposed to be. She stays on the bathroom floor, though, whilst Pansy lurches upright in a swirl of black robes. A glimpse of black stocking, pale skin. This will have to do.  
  
"Merlin, I look like death," Pansy says, examining herself critically in the mirror. "I look like a pumpkin."  
  
"You look fine," Millicent says loyally, not moving from the floor. The tiles are cool against her hands.  
  
Pansy mishears, her mind is obviously on someone else. "It'll be fine once we get down to dinner. After I've fixed this mess."  
  
"We could stay here for a bit longer." Millicent's voice is very quiet, resigned.  
  
"It's all right, it'll be fine," Pansy says again, reapplying her makeup with brisk efficient movements. She doesn't look at Millicent when she says this, however, but concentrates on her reflection. She steps back, for a better view. "It doesn't look as though I've been crying, does it?" she asks Millicent, absently.  
  
Millicent shakes her head, knowing that Pansy can't see her in the mirror. She doesn't trust herself to say anything else as she watches her friend dab a finger into a tub of the lipsalve that she now knows to be raspberry. Fortunately, if Millicent wants to look at it that way, Pansy isn't actually listening for an answer. She is busy running her finger along her lips, moistening them for someone else. They're glistening for someone else. And now Millicent knows just what it is that Draco gets to taste, whenever he wants, and more.  
  
_He'll never give you what I can. I love you. He doesn't know where to begin._  
  
"It'll be fine," she says for the third time, and Millicent wonders just to whom, exactly, Pansy is talking.  
  
Because it certainly isn't her.


End file.
